(Scars do not appear to be cause of death –shock ... - Bad Request

the stern countenance of an adult, or a grown man might attempt to
emulate the soft trill of a boy. "We have heard some rumors of a scarred
man who awoke in the Hive. A good and honest, if clueless fellow- forgive
me for saying so. I have heard that you have a keen mind. You will need
that."
A distant rumble stopped the conversation there.
The stone floor pounded beneath my boots as we raced out to the Foundry
proper, and my skin tingled with a panicked flush.
The forges were silent, the voices of the overseers were mute. For a
moment the heartbeat of the Foundry paused, and the absence of the
rhythmic pulse of a hundred hammers striking in concert echoed through
the chamber. There was only the low murmur of a crowd that didn't know
what to do at the site of a tragedy, before someone could come in and give
orders on what was to be done.
And there she was.
"All right, everyone, you've seen enough!" Alissa snapped, "If you lot are just
going to stand there like idiots I'll be charging five coppers a glance!"
Slowly the crowd dispersed, though a few glanced back to absorb a few
extra details.
Machinery was so fragile. One halted gear or one wrench tossed into the
cogs and the entire thing falls apart with clangs and squeals and the smell of
burning grease. Flesh, however, wasn't nearly so strong.
I'd seen plenty of death, but nothing quite like this. There was something
natural and easy about dying in battle: the way the body lies, still
recognizable as humanoid. There was dignity there, a quiet nobility that one
had had a chance to survive in the struggle, even if he faltered and failed.
It was nothing like this, a pulped bag of guts and splintered bone, pink-white
and exposed like porcelain shards. The limbs were splayed as if independent
of the body; the only thing recognizable was one upraised arm with fingers
slightly curled. The poor sod's mouth was open in a distended O, the jaw set
at an improper angle as the head had been crushed... his scalp barely held in
the pink mash of his brains. Strangely enough his skin was the most intact
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